(May 25, 2021 at 4:44 am)BrianSoddingBoru4 Wrote: A couple of other possible explanations spring to mind:
1. The article mentions that this behaviour by chimps occurs in essentially the same areas where humans do the same thing. Primates are imitative by nature, so it's at least plausible that the chimps are putting stones in trees for no other reason that they've seen stones piled in trees.
2. Chimps are known to use tools as well as having an ability to plan ahead, so this could possibly be a case of them storing stones for future use.
Boru
Agree, those are much more plausible. It seems a big leap to see an animal doing something we perceive as useless and jump to "they must be worshipping!"
The prospect of chimps or other apes evolving as our ancient ancestors did and catching up to us is an exciting thought. I think some people are a little too excited about it to do the due diligence scientific study requires.
